Description

SX 6493-6593 SOUTH TAWTON

8/161 Olditch Farmhouse

II

House, former farmhouse. Early-mid C16, with major later C16 and C17 improvements,
refurbished and rearranged in the late C19 and modernised with extensions circa
1970. Plastered walls, mostly granite stone rubble but also cob in places; stone
rubble stacks, two of them with granite ashlar chimneypieces; slate roof, the old
house was originally thatched.
Plan and development: an L-shaped house. Now the short crosswing faces the road to
the north-east but the original main block is that at right-angles to rear of the
left end. It had a 4-room-and-through-passage plan and is built down a gentle
slope, and it faces north-west. Uphill at the right end is a small inner room with
a gable-end stack. The hall, also relatively small, has a large axial stack backing
onto the passage. Parlour on the lower side of the passage has a large axial stack
also backing onto the passage. There was once a small unheated lobby or dairy at
the left end but the parlour has been enlarged by the removal of the partition. The
original early-mid C16 house was a part-floored open hall house. There was a full
height framed crosswall at the upper end of the hall and the inner room had a
chamber over from the beginning. The hall was then open to the roof and heated by
an open hearth fire. The passage and lower end have been so much rebuilt since that
it is impossible to establish whether or not it was originally floored. In the late
C16 hall fireplace was inserted. The service end was rebuilt in the mid-late C17
as a dairy and parlour with a new stack. The hall was probably floored over about
the same time and was thereafter used as a kitchen. A late C19 1-room plan
extension was built at right angles in front (north-west) of the lower end; it has
a gable-end stack. Whole house modernised circa 1970 and at this time a kitchen
extension built in the angle of the 2 wings extending across the former passage
front doorway. The inner room stack may be as late as this. Main house is 2
storeys.
Exterior: present front faces north-east and includes the gable end of the main
block (containing a late C19 casement with glazing bars over a C20 leanto porch
which continues round the left corner as a conservatory) and the side of the late
C19 extension which has a 4-pane sash of that date each floor. All the roofs are
gable-ended and the other sides have a variety of late C19 and C20 casements with
glazing bars.
Interior: the inner room includes a number of the original axial ceiling joists of
large scantling. The fireplace here is C20. The hall has a massive granite ashlar
fireplace; it is hooded on large granite corbels and has a hollow-chamfered
surround and includes an oven with a C19 cast iron door. No beam shows here. The
crosswall between hall and inner room is exposed in the roofspace. It is a closed
truss filled with wattle-and-daub. Hall roof carried on a true cruck truss which is
smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire. The framed crosswall is sooted on the
hall side only. The rest of the roof was replaced in the late C19. The parlour has
a granite ashlar fireplace with an oak lintel shaped to make a segmental arch;
soffit-chamfered with scroll stops. The crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with ramshead
scroll stops. A new crossbeam has been inserted along the line of the removed dairy
partition. The joists in both dairy and parlour have shallow scratch mouldings.

Listing NGR: SX6457193459

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26463958

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
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  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)